BioWare announcesMass Effect 3: Extended Cut, a free DLC pack for Mass Effect 3 they hope will address widespread unhappiness with the conclusion of the action/RPG sequel. Here's word on the free DLC, which does not yet carry a release date:

BioWare, a Label of Electronic Arts Inc. announced Mass Effect™ 3: Extended Cut, a downloadable content pack that will expand upon the events at the end of the critically acclaimed Action RPG. Through additional cinematic sequences and epilogue scenes, the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut will give fans seeking further clarity to the ending of Mass Effect 3 deeper insights into how their personal journey concludes. Coming this summer, the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut will be available for download on the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and PC for no extra charge*.

“We have reprioritized our post-launch development efforts to provide the fans who want more closure with even more context and clarity to the ending of the game, in a way that will feel more personalized for each player.” “We are all incredibly proud of Mass Effect 3 and the work done by Casey Hudson and team,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder of BioWare and General Manager of EA’s BioWare Label. “Since launch, we have had time to listen to the feedback from our most passionate fans and we are responding. With the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut we think we have struck a good balance in delivering the answers players are looking for while maintaining the team’s artistic vision for the end of this story arc in the Mass Effect universe.”

Casey Hudson, Executive Producer of the Mass Effect series added, “We have reprioritized our post-launch development efforts to provide the fans who want more closure with even more context and clarity to the ending of the game, in a way that will feel more personalized for each player.”

Yifes wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 12:30:Your choices drastically changes how the story ends for many of the key characters in the series (ie. Tali, Legion, Wrex, Mordin, etc). The final sequence is just the ending to Shepard's story.

Yeah, it's just too bad that those choices mean nothing in the end, because everything gets blown to hell NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO.

And I'm sorry, but Destroying all reapers, controlling all reapers and merging with Reapers all leads to the exact same thing, so it's ONE ending.

What are you talking about? How is destroying all the reapers, controlling the reapers, and merging with the reapers "ONE" ending?

I think you need to go back and rewatch the endings. They are almost exactly the same, with very minor differences. The problem is that the endings don't show the long-term consequences of the choices you've made throughout the series. Like, what happened to the Krogan if you cured the genophage? Did they breed out of control and start another Krogan rebellion? What happened to the Rachni if you saved the Queen? Did they continue to work in peace with the other races or did they revert to their more violent ways? What happened to the Geth if you empowered them? Did they eventually become the new Reapers, as the Cital ghost kid suggested would inevitably happen to all synthetic life? The endings didn't really answer any of these questions, nor do they tell you about what happened to your teammates.

Paketep wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 12:10:What?. There's ONE ending, it's red, green or blue. And there's a possible 3 second epilogue if you got enough war assets, that is, if you played multiplayer.

What's wrong with the ending?. What's wrong is they said during months how there were LOTS of ending depending on the MANY decisions you made during the games. How those decisions had HUGE repercussions. And in the end, all those decisions had -30/+30 war assets repercussions, and the end was basically "fuck you and fuck everything you did during those 100/120 hours you played, this is the end we decided, and fuck you if you don't like it".

What are you talking about? How is destroying all the reapers, controlling the reapers, and merging with the reapers "ONE" ending? And read the PA link. The entire game is the ending to the trilogy. Your choices drastically changes how the story ends for many of the key characters in the series (ie. Tali, Legion, Wrex, Mordin, etc). The final sequence is just the ending to Shepard's story.

What's wrong with the ending?. What's wrong is they said during months how there were LOTS of ending depending on the MANY decisions you made during the games. How those decisions had HUGE repercussions. And in the end, all those decisions had -30/+30 war assets repercussions, and the end was basically "fuck you and fuck everything you did during those 100/120 hours you played, this is the end we decided, and fuck you if you don't like it".

I have to wonder if they planned an ending that did take previous choices into factor, and then it got cut to make the ship date.

The next game can take place several hundred years in the future and the mass relays can be rebuilt with the help of the prothean survivor you have as a crew mate.

Doesn't make any sense. Jarvik is a soldier and wouldn't know more about mass relays than you do about string theory or would be able to build a F-22 from scratch.

No, the thing is that one of the Prothean relays was on the Citadel. I didn't read anywhere that they removed it so the Alliance could just discover it in the debris (see: Cerberus and the remains of the Collector base if you destroyed it) and, in time, copy it.

Shit was never very good to begin with. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people got as upset as they did, but honestly were people really expecting something better? From Bioware of all people? These are the devs who have been writing the same damn story with the same damn characters for the past decade.

LurkerLito wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 11:59:The next game can take place several hundred years in the future and the mass relays can be rebuilt with the help of the prothean survivor you have as a crew mate.

Javik is a soldier, he's not a scientist. He wouldn't have a CLUE how the Mass Relays were built. The one that was built by the Protheans were done by the team on Ilos, which was one of their top research facilities. Ie, their brightest minds were there.

That's saying that the Theory of Relativity can be recreated and improved upon by some guy who did a tour in Afhanistan.

So the Relays are dead, and will not be recreated. Then again, they aren't going to make a game in the future anyway.

To be honest, I'd quite like to see a game set during the Rachni wars. Being able to play a Krogan in SP would be awesome, as they ROCK in MP.

Yifes wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 11:40:I know. Its lazy from an animation standpoint, but they are drastically different plot wise, and there are ~16 different endings depending on your choices. The ending I chose was quite satisfactory for my Shepard.

What?. There's ONE ending, it's red, green or blue. And there's a possible 3 second epilogue if you got enough war assets, that is, if you played multiplayer.

What's wrong with the ending?. What's wrong is they said during months how there were LOTS of ending depending on the MANY decisions you made during the games. How those decisions had HUGE repercussions. And in the end, all those decisions had -30/+30 war assets repercussions, and the end was basically "fuck you and fuck everything you did during those 100/120 hours you played, this is the end we decided, and fuck you if you don't like it".

Me, I wonder how Casey Hudson hasn't been fired, and I hope nobody ever again buys a Bioware game. DA2 was abysmal, and ME3 was better, but it was completely undone by the ending. Muzyka can release as many press releases he want, it doesn't make the ending any less a piece of shit.

Bhruic wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 11:05:The Protheans did create a functional mass relay, even if it was a completely different type that absolutely broke the way mass relays functioned in the first place. So if people accepted that (which surprisingly they did), they could wave their hands and say "magical space pixies fixed the mass relays", and people shouldn't have a problem with it.

This is actually easy to explain away but the funny thing is only if you bought the $80 Collector's/Deluxe Edition or paid the $10 extortion fee for the Prothean DLC.

The next game can take place several hundred years in the future and the mass relays can be rebuilt with the help of the prothean survivor you have as a crew mate. But all of us who bought the standard edition of the game, who didn't want to pay the extortion fee of the key character they removed from the game, will have to just be content with space pixies.

I know. Its lazy from an animation standpoint, but they are drastically different plot wise, and there are ~16 different endings depending on your choices. The ending I chose was quite satisfactory for my Shepard.

Yifes wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 11:24:Late to the discussion since I just finished ME3, but all those quibbles aside, what's wrong with the ending? I pretty much agree with Penny-Arcade, it was a damn good game overall, ending included.

Verno wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 11:20:Just speaking generally for a second since we don't have another ME3 topic for a change, I actually really enjoyed ME3. It was such a great game overall and I almost feel bad that the shitty ending has overshadowed it.

My beefs were the companion choices this time (the second game feels entirely pointless), the limited mission types and fewer opportunities to actually use your built up paragon/renegade influence. I wasn't really sold what they did with TIM and Cerberus either. Cerberus felt way too numerous, I think they had a larger army than Earth as a whole. It felt really inconceivable that anyone could hold out long against the Reapers (lame name) given how dominant and powerful they are displayed as.

But all of those things are minor quibbles, they got a lot more right this time. The levels felt a lot bigger, the Citadel was a place again instead of 4 corridors, it had a functional helmet toggle, the combat stuff was well done even if the one butan approach got in the way a lot. Lots of nice callbacks and conclusions to stuff, few bugs, a minigame that isnt totally detestable and so on. Damn shame they screwed up the ending so badly.

Late to the discussion since I just finished ME3, but all those quibbles aside, what's wrong with the ending? I pretty much agree with Penny-Arcade, it was a damn good game overall, ending included.

Just speaking generally for a second since we don't have another ME3 topic for a change, I actually really enjoyed ME3. It was such a great game overall and I almost feel bad that the shitty ending has overshadowed it.

My beefs were the companion choices this time (the second game feels entirely pointless), the limited mission types and fewer opportunities to actually use your built up paragon/renegade influence. I wasn't really sold what they did with TIM and Cerberus either. Cerberus felt way too numerous, I think they had a larger army than Earth as a whole. It felt really inconceivable that anyone could hold out long against the Reapers (lame name) given how dominant and powerful they are displayed as.

But all of those things are minor quibbles, they got a lot more right this time. The levels felt a lot bigger, the Citadel was a place again instead of 4 corridors, it had a functional helmet toggle, the combat stuff was well done even if the one butan approach got in the way a lot. Lots of nice callbacks and conclusions to stuff, few bugs, a minigame that isnt totally detestable and so on. Damn shame they screwed up the ending so badly.

So if people can stomach the concept then I think they'll accept whatever reasoning is given for the inevitable rediscovery of more relays or the underlying technology.

The Protheans did create a functional mass relay, even if it was a completely different type that absolutely broke the way mass relays functioned in the first place. So if people accepted that (which surprisingly they did), they could wave their hands and say "magical space pixies fixed the mass relays", and people shouldn't have a problem with it.

MacLeod wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 10:08:Well, yea, there's a lot more pressing problems with the ending, but I was just looking at it from a going-forward standpoint. No mass relays are a big deal. I'm not sure they can really just handwave it away, considering that it seems they've established that the other races have no clue how to build them (since they only use the originals). It'd be a pretty big leap to say that we've either created new relays or all of a sudden have ships capable of doing it themselves.

Fair enough, I just don't see it as a big deal. They can advance the universe and even use it to their advantage, making it all about exploration and rediscovering older races which could lead to war and blah blah blah. Frankly it was never really conceivable that the relays functioned perfectly without needing maintenance which would require a good level of understanding. So if people can stomach the concept then I think they'll accept whatever reasoning is given for the inevitable rediscovery of more relays or the underlying technology.

MacLeod wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 09:43:I still don't know how they purposefully wrote themselves into a corner with their universe... all the mass relays being destroyed... well that's great, how are you going to ever do another game in the same universe now, when there's no way to get from system to system?

They've said that any future ME games will be set during or before the events of ME3.

To be honest, I don't mind the gates being destroyed so much. Everyone figured that the Mass Effect story was the START of the ME universe, when it is in fact the end (basically.) That was a nice curveball.

It still doesn't explain how all the gates blow up without eitherA) Destroying every solar system they're inorB) (if you prefer the "the energy gets sent to the next gate and doesn't erupt!" theory) how that energy, once it reaches the final gate, doesn't eradicate life from ~25% of the galaxy.

And I still say that the whole indoctrination theory, even if that wasn't what the actual plan was, they should have just came out and said "Damn... you caught us... we didn't think anyone would catch that until we released our first DLC. *whispers to dev team* scrap everything and work on this story!". Because that idea is 100x more creative than their A, B or C endings.

Yeah, that's what I said too a few weeks back. It's a theory that's a little shaky here and there, but it can be MADE to fit. And as a writer, if someone has a better idea than you do, and nobody knows what your original idea was, just grab it.

El Pit wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 10:26:Possible changes in the "Extended Cut"1) There IS a cake!2) No more green explosions all over the universe. Instead: RED explosions!3) Bobby wakes up. It was all just a bad dream.4) The God kid in the end starts singing "Don't fear the reaper".5) You can tell the God kid to stop restarting the matrix every 50,000 years and do some homework instead.